Contents

Getting started

The activity can be started by talking to Talsar located in the Daemonheim camp. He will give the players information about himself and the location and time of the next sinkhole due to emerge with each one due every hour, however you can only play twice per day, resetting at 0:00 UTC. If an attempt is made to play a third time, the player receives this message: "You can only enter a sinkhole twice a day before it becomes unstable. Return tomorrow to play again." It is additionally possible to enter the same sinkhole twice, though both attempts will count towards the two sinkholes which may be entered per day. Only a completed round counts as a daily turn, so if you lag out during a round or are simply waiting to enter, it does not count as one of the two daily turns.

He offers the players the option to teleport to the expected sinkhole location five minutes before it spawns. The teleport option can be used up to three times per day. If a player is out of teleports they can still ask for the current location and find their own way there.

Panel in waiting room.

When the sinkhole spawns, a doorway similar to a Resource Dungeon entrance appears on the surface. The entrance leads to a grouping room, with a Gorajo hoardstalker who will explain the activity. You remain on your starting world and players are only drawn from that world. Any items on the player must be banked in the grouping room, including those allowed in Dungeoneering; experience pendants, the orb of oculus, and any aura. The only exceptions are ring of kinship and Daemonheim aura. The player can then notify the Gorajo that they are ready to be grouped. The game will start once five players are ready.

Players can leave the grouping room by using the ladder, but they will use up one of their two daily turns, according to a message in-game. Teleporting directly out of the sinkhole is not allowed. However if they logout to the lobby, when they next log in they will find themselves back in Daemonheim without using up a turn.

If you are unable to start a game due to there being not enough players, the hoardstalker will teleport you to safety (back to Daemonheim), when the sinkhole collapses. This does not use up a daily turn.

Locations

Sinkholes appear in various locations. There are 20 possible locations total:

Gameplay

Gorajo hoardstalker waiting in the room.

Once started, all five players are teleported into a dungeon similar to that in Dungeoneering. Players will spawn in the starting room, which Gorajo hoardstalker will sit in the middle. After a three second countdown, the doors will unlock.

Starting room

In the same room, players can choose one of three attack styles (Melee, Magic, Ranged) from the tables. You will be automatically equipped with suitable armour and weapon once chosen. The system remembers your choice, so you need to pick one only when you are new or you would like to switch.

Also available is food in the crate. There are doors leading to the rest of the dungeon, and one locked door leading to the treasure room. The deeper dungeon rooms contain monsters to be defeated, resources to be harvested and exploratory totems.

There is a deposit chute in the starting room that allows you to deposit resources from your inventory (see below).

An exit ladder can be found if you would like to leave.

Objectives

In the dungeon, there are three kinds of resources: raw materials, Combat Totems, and Exploration Totems.

Raw resources can be collected from resource spots. Only a single type of raw material is available for collection, either cutting trees, mining rocks, picking plants or fishing. Materials and their required level are the same as in Dungeoneering, though the lowest level resources are most common. Each resource gives 10 points once deposited no matter the level.

Exploratory totems are found on the floor of most rooms. They give 20 points once deposited.

Combat totems are dropped when a monster is defeated. They give 30 points once deposited.

Resources are deposited with the Gorajo in the starting room or in deposit chutes found throughout the dungeon. There are typically 3-4 chutes in a map and are marked with a bank symbol on the minimap. Each resource has a quota of how many can be deposited for points. Deposits beyond this number do not award points, though they do count towards whether a player has "completed" the objective. (see Rewards section) The raiding ends when all quotas have been met or after seven minutes.

Cards are the critical element of the Treasure Room, which determines each player's reward at the end of the game. Cards can be acquired under totems, while gathering or in chests. See the Cards section for more information.

Levels will generate the same way as dungeoneering floors. Players can find prayer altars, which function the same as in dungeoneering, and chests which contain cards. There are also summoning obelisks, furnaces, farming patches and spinning wheels, which are essentially cosmetic as they are not needed for the game.

Objectives Panel

You will see a panel as soon as you enter the sinkhole. On the panel there are several pieces of information available:

The panel shown in the gameplay.

Time remaining

Your score

Your rank

Total number of Raw Resources deposited by all players / the required number

Total number of Combat Totems deposited by all players / the required number

Total number of Exploration Totems deposited by all players / the required number

Note that the panel only shows the materials that have already been deposited - other players may already be holding the resources to fill the maximum. When required amount is reached, a tick appears next to the quota.

Monsters

The following monsters can appear with varying levels. None have any weaknesses. Their only drops are combat totems (always) and cards (randomly, approximately 1/8 chance). Monsters rarely appear at the highest levels - the lower range is more common.

Raw Resources

Certain raw resources have a particle effect around them. Fishing spots will be blue, ores grey, plants green, and trees an orange-brown, which is often hard to see. These raw resources yield double when harvested, so it's important to try to find these.

Treasure room

When all players gather in the treasure room, they will be ordered according to their rank.

The panel shown in the treasure room.

There are five possible rewards: huge lamp, large lamp, Medium lamp, small lamp, and Dungeoneering tokens. The huge lamp starts in the treasure box of the top-ranked player, and the treasure boxes containing the other rewards are randomly arranged among the remaining players. The items in each treasure box can be read from the panel on the top left corner. See Rewards section for more information.

Each player is given one turn to use cards obtained, starting from the fifth player. When all players finish their turn, rewards are given in inventory and they can leave by the ladder. Players can choose to spawn at the sinkhole entrance, or go back to Daemonheim. It is possible to enter the same sinkhole again if enough time remains.

If you log out in the treasure room then you may or may not get a reward and a daily turn will be used.

Cards

Cards are randomly found within the dungeons under totems, while gathering resources or from locked chests. Cards have no use before the treasure room. You can only carry up to five cards, which will include duplicates. Cards can be destroyed but not dropped, and all duplicates of a card can be chosen for destruction at once. Players can have multiple cards on hand but only one can be activated at the end. Each player will have one turn to choose which card they will deploy, starting with 5th place and finishing with 1st place. The chosen card summons the corresponding creature to give out their special effects. There are eleven types of card:

Name and icon

Effect

Name and icon

Effect

Name and icon

Effect

Beguiling smoke devil

Randomly scrambles all the chests.

Cloning mosquito

Your chest will become a copy of the rank below you.

(If you are 5th rank, it does nothing. If cloning hoardstalker gear, each player gets a part they do not already own.)

Consistent yak

No matter what reward you have in your chest at the end of the reward game, you will receive a medium lamp.

(In the case of the Beguiling Smoke devil card, this stops all chests from moving.)

Reversing phoenix

Returns all chests to the state they were in before the last card was played.

Scavenging meerkat

Adds a medium lamp to your chest, but all eligible players will receive a randomly generated extra card.

(If five cards are already in possession, no extra cards will be received.)

Thieving locust

Trades your chest with the player ranked last. Useless for the 5th place player.

Trading leech

Trades your chest with the player one rank lower than you. Useless for the 5th place player.

Trading mantis

Trades your chest with the player one rank higher than you.

(If the rank 1 player uses this, it trades with the rank 5 player.)

Whimsical bunyip

Will randomly generate one of the other 10 cards and play it.

Strategy

Make sure to get at least one of every resource turned in. The prizes give experience based on #/3 of variety of resources as well as dungeoneering level. For example, only turning in ores and combat totems gives 66% as much as turning in all three objectives. (It is still possible to get completion credit even if the quota is met, though points are not given)

Without competition, try prioritizing long-ranged monsters, as this allows melee monsters to walk closer for easier totem collection. With competition - especially against melee players - killing melee monsters first would be better.

Combat totems are visible only to the player who killed the monster for a short time. Always prioritize killing monsters over picking up combat totems.

Avoid fighting higher level monsters - just run past them. Every monster can only drop one totem. As well, a single multi-target attack can kill several low level monsters, while higher levelled ones will merely be injured. However, players with 90+ in combat stats may find killing them worth the relatively short time.

Avoid collection until after all exploration and combat totems are turned in. They give few cards and few points.

The dungeoneering tool belt is used in sinkholes. As such, make sure that you have the best tool binds (primal hatchet and primal pickaxe, if possible) as these can save precious seconds.

Don't forget prayers! Soul Split is often overkill, but the damage prayers are often a huge difference.

Try to go in your own direction, if you're competing with someone else for totems you both lose out.

Unless your combat level is low, food is a waste of space. The monsters located in the Sinkholes are relatively weak, and Regenerate can heal between rooms.

There are more resource and combat totems available than required to meet the objectives. If the objective is nearly reached for a particular totem type, deposit any of these totems as soon as possible so that you gain points for them. Balance risk and reward carefully and always remember deposit box locations - depositing totems after the objective has been met for that type of totem will not give points and so will be wasted, but you might get more totems if you spend less time banking. You do not need to go to the start room to deposit resources. However, if you find yourself far away a home teleport may be your best option. You can also opt to deposit your items as soon as you see a deposit box, but do not go out of the way to deposit unless the objective is near completion.

In terms of experience given, there is about 10% difference between small and medium, 25% between small and large, and nearly double going from small to huge. However, small plus medium (from meerkats) gives more experience than a single huge.

Cards

Know which cards to prioritise. Thieving locust, reversing phoenix and trading leech are good for higher ranks, while titan and trading mantis are good for lower ranks.

Meerkats are generally the most powerful card, but in rare situations it might cause a loss. If you are fifth, using meerkats would almost certainly lead to your chest taken by leech or locust. If you are fifth and get a large lamp, a titan may be a better bet.

Cards can be deleted even in the treasure room. High ranked players with 5 cards may want to delete a card so that the extra card effect of Meerkats can be taken advantage of. The player ranked first gets an extra card immediately - the fifth card must be deleted before entering the treasure room.

Avoid picking up duplicates. Deleting cards can take precious time.

To collect cards quickly, explore or kill monsters. It is possible to acquire cards through resource gathering but the majority of them are found underneath exploratory totems or through combat.

Item

Points

Resources

10

Exploratory totem

20

Combat totem

30

Rewards

The Gorajo hoardstalker shuffling the treasure boxes

In addition to any experience from combat and resource-gathering activities during the game, the rewards available are:

Lamp (Huge/large/medium/small) plus some tokens

The experience obtained depends on lamp size, Dungeoneering level and number of objectives fulfilled.See Sinkholes/Lamp experience

Tokens obtained equals 5% lamp experience, rounded up.

Extra lamps, such as from Scavenging Meerkats, gives the same XP but no additional tokens.

Pure dungeoneering tokens

Amount depends on the players individual score and their dungeoneering level.

If you already unlocked the full Hoardstalker outfit, having a piece of Hoardstalker clothing in your chest will result in getting the Hoardstalker ring. A Hoardstalker ring may also be occasionally found while scavenging resources.

The "The Naabe" title can be unlocked without the full outfit owned.

Trivia

Upon release, sinkholes were scheduled to take place every two hours, however this was changed soon after to every half hour instead, just 15 minutes before the second sinkhole formed. This was reversed as of 12 February2013. The update in the week of 17 February2013 has reduced this to one hour.

One of the sinkhole layouts only had around 40 Combat totems available, being short of the 41-45 combat totems requirement. This was fixed as part of the patch notes of 13 August2013.

You can examine an invisible rock in the lobby, examining it reads: "I can't see a rock." It is located west of the burning brazier, on the carpet.

Sometimes when a sinkhole is very close to spawning (<1 minute), Talsar would say there is no sinkhole. When that happens, talk to him and ask to be teleported instead of right clicking.

When the whimsical bunyip plays the reversing phoenix, the phoenix will undo the bunyip's effects.